Trump asks Ukraine and Russia to meet for

Rome (AP)-President Donald Trump asked Ukraine and Russia on Friday to meet for “very high level conversations”, saying they are “very close to an agreement” to finish the bloody three-year war.

Trump published in his real social site shortly after arriving in Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral that it was a “good day” of conversations and meetings between both sides. His envoy, Steve Witkoff, had visited Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday,

“They are very close to an agreement, and the two parties should now meet, at very high levels, to” finish it, “Trump wrote. “Most of the main points are agreed.

Trump’s announcement continued to say in an interview published on Friday that “Crimea will stay with Russia”, the last example of how he has been pressing Ukraine to make concessions to end the war while the country remains under siege.

He also demanded previously on social networks that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “immediately” signed a long data agreement that gives the United States access to the mineral resources of his nation.

The progress at the end of the war has seemed difficult to achieve in the months since Trump returned to the White House, and his previous claims of imminent advances have not come true. Russia continued its bombing of Ukraine on Friday, killing three people with a strike of unmanned planes in an apartment building in a city in the southeast.

Despite a rare Putin warning this week, Trump’s approach has been largely urging Zelenskyy to reduce an agreement that would imply giving territory to the invader of Ukraine. In an interview with Time magazine, Trump described Crimea as a place where Russia has “had their submarines” and “people speak greatly.”

“Crimea will stay with Russia,” Trump said. “And Zelensky understands that, and everyone understands that he has been with them for a long time. He has been with them long before Trump appeared.”

When journalists asked him, Zelenskyy said he didn’t want to comment on Trump’s statement, but he repeated, as he has done many times during the war, to recognize the Ukrainian territory occupied as Russian is a red line for his country.

Crimea is a strategic peninsula along the Black Sea in southern Ukraine. He was seized by Russia in 2014, while President Barack Obama was in office, years before the large -scale invasion of Russia of his neighbor in 2022.

Disagreements on the following steps

Trump has been accusing Zelenskyy of prolonging war by resisting negotiations with Putin. The leaders of Western Europe, however, have accused Putin of dragging their feet in the negotiations and trying to take more Ukrainian lands, while their army has impulse of the battlefield.

The war could approach a crucial moment as the Trump administration supports its options. High American officials had warned that administration could soon give up attempts to stop the war if the two parties did not reach an agreement. That could mean a crucial American military stop for Ukraine.

Speaking to journalists on Friday when he left the White House to attend the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, Trump said there was no deadline for the conclusion of peace conversations.

“I just want to do it as quickly as possible,” Trump said. Negotiators are “quite close” to an agreement, he said.

He promised to meet with foreign leaders while he was in Rome, and said it was “possible” that he could meet with Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy said Friday night, however, that he was not sure to arrive in Rome on time for the funeral.

The Witkoff meeting with Putin on Friday was his second meeting this month and the fourth since February. Witkoff’s trip coincided with the death of a superior Russian military officer in a car bomb near Moscow.

The Kremlin released a brief video of Putin and Witkoff greeting. “How are you, Mr. President?” Witkoff could be heard say. “Well, well, thanks,” Putin replied in rare comments in English, while the two set their hands.

Anadolu through Getty Images

Putin’s foreign policy assistant, Yuri Ushakov, who attended the conversations, said the meeting lasted three hours and was “constructive” and “useful.” More conversations are expected, he said.

Putin and Witkoff discussed: “In particular, the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between representatives of the Russian Federation and Ukraine,” according to Ushakov. The delegations of the two countries met for the last time in the weeks after the invasion of their neighbor of Russia in February 2022.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with “Face the Nation” of News who agreed with Trump’s opinion in which negotiations “are moving in the right direction.”

Russia said before Trump’s post, on Friday night, he is “ready to reach an agreement, but there are still some specific points, elements of this agreement that must be adjusted.” He refused to provide more details, according to the extracts of the interview that will be broadcast on Sunday.

Russian attacks claim more lives

Meanwhile, Russia has continued its bombing of Ukraine. A drone hit an apartment building in a city in the southeast of Ukraine, killed three people and wounded another 10, the authorities said on Friday, a day after Trump rebuked Putin for a large attack of missiles and drones against kyiv who killed 12 people and injured 87.

A 76 -year -old girl and a woman were among the civilians killed in the night strike of Drones in Pavlohrad, in the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine, the head of the Regional Administration, Serhii Lysak, wrote on Telegram.

The Russian forces fired 103 Shahed drones and lure in five Ukrainian regions during the night, the Ukraine Air Force reported. The authorities in the regions of the Northeast of Sumy and Jharkiv reported damage to the civil infrastructure but there are no casualties.

The Russian forces used Thursday attack against kyiv as a coverage to launch almost 150 assaults on Ukrainian positions along the front line of approximately 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), Zelenskyy said Thursday night.

“When the maximum of our forces focused on defense against missiles and drones, Russians significantly intensified their land attacks,” he wrote on Telegram.

Zelenskyy pointed out on Thursday that Ukraine agreed to a proposal of Alto El Fuego de USA. UU. 44 days ago, as a first step for a negotiated peace, but that the Russian attacks continued.

During the recent conversations, Russia hit the city of Sumy, killing more than 30 civilians gathered to celebrate Ramos Sunday, mistreated Odessa with drones and criticized Zaporizhzhia with powerful sliding bombs.

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Megerian reported from Washington and Novikov reported from Kyiv, Ukraine.